In the Lights
by LostinOblivion
Summary: Oneshot, Matt loses everything...almost everything.


Normally Matt and Emily weren't fazed in the slightest by flashing red and blue lights. Every scene they went to had several sets of the lights flashing, and it just became sort of like white noise for them. Just like ambulances didn't faze them, again the vehicles were parked at every scene as a precaution, they barely noticed them anymore.

But as they sat in their pajamas, covered in soot and wrapped in grey wool blankets, Emily was intently aware of the flashing lights nearby. There had to be at least half a dozen patrol cars parked in front of Matt's building. She also couldn't help be notice the two ambulances parked nearby, one loading someone into the back, the other patiently waiting to take the next victim the firefighters came out with.

Her eyes drifted back to Matt's building, where they'd both been sleeping less than an two hours ago. Now the once sturdy looking brick building was engulfed in enormous flames that burned their way through everything. She could see the orange-red inferno through some of the windows, speeding through the building as if they were possessed by demons. The flames broke through open windows and licked their way up the side of the building, blackening the red bricks. Thick clouds of black smoke billowed out from the building rapidly, twisting in the wind and darkening the night sky further.

Emily turned to stare at Matt, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. He was starting blankly at the building he'd lived in for the last five years; the building that had everything he owned in it. Well, almost everything, he did have a small supply at Emily's apartment. But, everything he'd accumulated over his lifetime was in that apartment, everything. It wasn't his stereo, HD DVD player, or even his badge or gun that he was concerned about. Though he would really miss his gun, a new one would just feel different in his grip.

No, it was the baseball cards he'd had since he was a kid, the only pictures he had of his mother, a shot glass from the first night he and Cheryl had celebrated at Sloan's over six years ago, and the nervously scribbled note he'd gotten from Emily after their first night together. It was these things that he would miss, these things that he couldn't replace, and that weighed on him. Each of those things was a symbol of something he wanted to remember till the day he was adjusting his dentures and drooling in his jello.

Collecting baseball cards was something he and his brother, like many young boys, loved to do as kids. They'd hurry out to buy the newest ones, trade doubles, and brag whenever one managed to snag a really cool one. Together they must have accumulated over 400 of the cards, but they'd stopped when his mother died. And those pictures, were the only way Matt could remember what she looked like. Sure he could picture her in his mind, but the memories faded after all the years that passed, the pictures were his link to reviving them. He would never again see that picture from a day in the park, when he and his brother were barely school age. His mother was crouched to their level, arms wrapped around her boys, as they all smiled happily at the camera.

Matt and Cheryl had both been fairly new to the crisis negotiation thing when they started working together, and it took them a few months before they stopped taking work home with them. After they'd finally learned to separate themselves, and had a very successful negotiation with a lawyer (yeah, that hadn't been easy), they'd gone to Sloan's. After getting completely wasted, they'd left, each with a complimentary shot class from the bartender. The next morning both were painfully hung over, and spent the day swearing they'd never set foot in Sloan's again. They were there again a week later.

Then there was that scribbled note from Emily that he found on a pillow in his hotel room. He'd met her later, and she was nervous and jumpy as could be, sure somebody would find out, sure somebody had seen. Emily was a good girl, she went by the rules, or at least she had before she met Matt. It took him all day to convince her that no one knew about them, and much to his delight she'd been back in his arms that night. That good girl found out she liked to break the rules even more than he did. It had actually been Emily that instigated the rendezvous in the office, not that anybody would ever believe that.

Now what would remind Matt of those things? He wondered this as he watched his home burn to the ground. The hoses weren't doing too much to stop the raging fire, but they'd been adding more for the past hour, trying desperately to saturate the persistent blaze. It was as he was staring that he felt Emily squeeze his hand, momentarily diverting his attention from the fire. Then it dawned on him, he was actually very lucky. Not only had he escaped that fire, but he'd escaped it with the only thing that mattered- Emily. They were both alive, when many people in the building hadn't been that lucky.

In the twelve-story building, the smoke detectors had only been working on the first seven. Matt's apartment was on the ninth, but fortunately there were caring people on the seventh and eighth floors. The seventh floor had woken up the eighth floor, and both had done their best to wake the ninth floor. Matt had heard pounding on his door before either noticed the smoke. They'd taken off out the door, not caring about their phones, badges, wallets, or anything else. None of it mattered, because there were still people on the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors that couldn't hear the alarms.

They'd both run up the stairs, allowing others to finish waking their floor and began pounding on the doors of the tenth. Smoke drifting through the hallways caused them to cough and sputter, forcing them to stop every few moments to catch their breath. Doors had flown open around them, and several people and joined in the desperate attempt to get people awake and out of the building to safety. There were shouted questions, crying children and people rushing to the fire escapes all around them. They made it to the eleventh floor, and were pounding doors when the smoke became too powerful.

Smoke rises, and by now it had gotten too thick for them to stand in, so they dropped to the floor. Still, crawling like infants, they tried with a few other people from other floors to pound on doors an get people out. Only about half the doors opened, these were the people that had already been awake. Anybody who was still asleep on these floors was unconscious by now and there was nothing left they could do. Emily had tried to go up to the twelfth floor, knowing that there were several families with children on it, but Matt had held her back. They'd argued as loudly and long as their strained lungs had let them, which hadn't been long. Giving up on words, Matt had done the only thing he could think to do; he'd slapped her.

It had worked, Emily had looked at him in shock for what felt like an hour, but was merely seconds, before dropping her hand from the doorknob. He'd whispered an apology, before grabbing her hand and taking off toward the nearest fire escape. They'd run through somebody's apartment, coughing and gasping through the smoke, before jumping out the window onto the metal fire escape. Together they'd run down 11 stories, chilled in the night air, and breathing with great difficulty. They'd been met by firefighters with oxygen masks and blankets, and escorted a distance from the building. Matt hated doing it, but didn't regret slapping Emily; it had gotten her out of the building, and that was all that mattered.

He was reminded of this looking at her now, as the sun began breaking through the night behind them. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close to him, as she had been before the ordeal started. Then they'd been spooned together in his bed, with barely an inch between them. Now they watched as the fire finally began to lose to the hoses, the flames slowly dying away, but the smoke still billowing, trying to block out the sun.

Emily rested her head on his shoulder, and turned toward the new ambulances that had showed up; they probably wouldn't be needed anymore tonight, or rather today. The M.E.'s office would transport the bodies, or what was left of them. Then once again, her attention drifted back to the flashing read and blue lights. Tonight their presence felt like a violation, as if the lights had invaded their home. Home was safe, not like work, there was no need for these flashing lights, until tonight, when all of the sudden there was.

* * *

_I really enjoyed writing this one, so if you liked it, or hated it, I'd love to know. Thanks for reading!_


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